10th Annual BrooksDay

This year marks the 10th anniversary of BrooksDay! Join the Guild Literary Complex as we honor the legacy of poet Gwendolyn Brooks and celebrate the launch of One Poem, One Chicago, which starts with a reissue of Brooks’ 1987 poetry collection Blacks (Third World Press).

One Poem, One Chicago is a collaboration of the Poetry Foundation, the Chicago Public Library, Third World Press, Brooks Permissions, and Northwestern University Press. Blacks will be reissued for the 2023 program and printed by Northwestern University Press; copies of the newly published edition will be available at all 81 branches of the Chicago Public Library and in the Poetry Foundation’s poetry library. A limited-run print edition of the collection will be available to the public for purchase from Third World Press.

Since 2013, BrooksDay has been a marquee event in the Guild’s yearly calendar with many literary, cultural, and civic leaders from Chicago and beyond taking the stage to celebrate and honor Gwendolyn Brooks, former poet Laureate of Illinois and the first African American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Want to learn more about Gwendolyn Brooks and her legacy? Check out her page on the Poetry Foundation website here!

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2023 BrooksDay Events

This year’s BrooksDay will include:

12:00 pm	Doors open for workshop participants only
12:15-1:15 pm	Golden Shovel Workshop with Maggie Queeney (limited space, please register here)
1:00 pm	Doors open for BrooksDay reading
1:30 pm	BrooksDay reading begins
3:30 pm	Break + birthday cake celebration!
5:30 pm	Reading concludes

Afterwards, join Brooks Permissions for ALL THIS LIFE: Examining Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha! The panel will feature Sandra Cisneros, Dr. Joanne Gabbin, and Sandra Jackson-Opoku delving into the profound impact of Gwendolyn Brooks and her seminal novel, Maud Martha. The event will be streamed live on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, from 7:00pm to 8:15pm (Central Time) on Brooks Permissions’s Facebook and YouTube channels.